Sunday, April 24

TV Guide™ Roundup

It's The Agony and the Ecstasy week at The Magazine of Record. Bad news first: it's the sneak previews of Hot Finales issue, meaning all our best friends are going on vacation for the summer. Will we still love them in September, or lose them to a summer love? Look inside for answers, plus suggested makeovers for American Idol finalists. Personally, I did my own with Magic Marker. Lots of beards and glasses and missing teeth.

But, oh, the lowest lows mean the highest highs! No only are we coming up on another sweeps month--and local news has just discovered that breast augmentation is sexier than mammograms--but the Letters column goes wall to wall with--I'm typing and swooning--reader suggestions for the TV brats left off the "10 Biggest Brats" list from two weeks ago. It's like that second hit you're not sure you should have taken:

The remarkably perceptive, not to mention as old as I am, Dan Weiler of Morton Grove, IL, votes for Claudia Lamb, "Heather Hartman" of Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman. In those pre-VCR days I actually scheduled my college classes around MH, MH. No, really.

Not unsurprisingly the rest of our correspondants can't measure up. Several appear to have missed the fact that it was a list of ten, and offer multiple choices. San Diego's encylopedic Ken Nakamura for example, nominates Megan of Drake & Josh, Pim of Phil of the Future, Bobby Brady, Rosanne's D.J. Conner, and the suspiciously-nepotistic-sounding Matt McGuire of Lizzie McGuire.Alfie Svoboda, who calls Pittsburgh home, wants to know how they could have missed Cartman, Wesley Crusher, or Arnold from Different Strokes. And Heather Hurd, another San Diegan, waxes poetic about Rugrats' Angelica Pickles, and though she stuck to one choice, both she and Wethersfield, CT's Harry Lichtenbaum (Larry Mondello) penned novellas.

And many thanks to the pride of Kokomo, reader HP, who sent me the code for hiding spoilers. Unfortunately I don't have to try it out for this week's Crossword Spoiler, because I don't know the answer: